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The rapid growth in support for marriage equality comes as most Americans begin to understand that it is essentially a conservative prospect, writes Jonathan Rauch. "Marriage joins couples not just in a contract with each other but also in a pact with their community, their kids, their God and millenniums of custom. Gay and lesbian Americans yearn for those bonds," he writes.

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Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said this week that he believes the court will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unfair tax policy, and dismiss the California Proposition 8 case for lack of jurisdiction.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, an openly gay U.S. Army intelligence analyst who has admitted to leaking thousands of secret documents published by the website WikiLeaks, is embraced as a hero by some in the LGBT community, but reviled by others who believe that he put the lives of fellow soldiers at risk. Manning's case gained renewed attention recently after San Francisco Pride bestowed and then rescinded the honorific title of grand marshal of the 2013 Pride parade. He will stand trial in a military court in June.

While a marriage-equality bill awaits action in Brazil, a court with jurisdiction over the country's judiciary said this week that notary publics must register civil unions as marriages if a same-sex couple requests it. The ruling is seen as a step toward marriage equality, but conservatives have so far blocked passage of a national law that would establish it in all 27 Brazilian states.

The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a petition to encourage producers of the television comedy "Modern Family" to allow gay characters Cam and Mitch to marry. "[S]eeing them get married, and seeing the characters in the story grapple with their desire to get married, makes it real for a bigger part of America," said James Esseks, director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project at the ACLU.